Appraising race

Between the recent George Zimmerman
acquittal and that still-trending celebrity chef nastiness, we are
reminded, yet again, that we do not live in anything close to a
post-racist society. Apparently America can elect a black president, but
it just can’t seem to shake 237 years of ingrained bigotry. Seriously …
can we all get along? Sundance hit “Fruitvale Station” takes a good,
hard look at that question, and the conclusions aren’t reassuring.

A little over three years before Trayvon Martin was
killed, and nearly 17 years after the Los Angeles riots, a 22-year-old
father in Oakland, Calif., named Oscar Grant was shot in the back by
police on the Fruitvale Station train platform near his home. Yes, he
was black; yes, he was wearing baggy pants and an oversized shirt; yes,
he was a recently paroled ex-con and had been involved in a fistfight on
the train; and yes, even though he wasn’t actively resisting the
officers, he wasn’t exactly playing nice. “Fruitvale Station” dares to
use that incident to make you examine your faith in law enforcement and
help you figure out where you sit on the sliding scale of racism. And
you’d better believe you’re on there somewhere.

The film opens with grainy cell phone
footage of the real Grant’s fatal confrontation with police, hauntingly
echoing the infamous video of Rodney King’s beating. The story then
flashes back 24 hours and we get to see how Oscar (portrayed by Michael
B. Jordan) spends his fateful, final day — New Year’s Eve 2008 — and the
mundane parts of his life becomes sublime. A trip to a grocery store
leads to a pay-it-forward moment of kindness for a stranger. A gas stop
leads to a fateful encounter with a stray dog. A simple brushing of
teeth with his daughter becomes a reaffirmation of an indelible bond.

This isn’t just about a young black man
who was in the wrong place at the wrong time; it’s a powerful character
study about someone trying to move beyond his checkered past and make a
new life for himself. His ultimate failure to do so becomes a
heartbreakingly honest portrait of the struggles of the 21st-century,
African-American male.

Freshman writer/director Ryan Coogler
refuses to sanitize Oscar, who is both aggressor and victim. He’s not so
much a morally ambiguous character as he is a three-dimensional person.
He’s a loving, attentive father, yet he horses around on his baby mama.
He loses his job because of incessant tardiness, yet he refuses to
return to a life of dealing drugs. You don’t sympathize for him — you
empathize with him. Masterfully, Coogler conveys this in a taut script
that forsakes telling for showing.

Jordan gives Oscar the thick skin he needs to live in
urban California, but fills every inch of his being with a tender heart.
His performance is riveting, as he deftly switches from ghetto-speak
with his friends to polite conversation with his mother, Academy
Award-winner Octavia Spencer (“The Help”). She believes in her son, but
she gives him no quarter — and he respectfully obeys her without
becoming a mama’s boy.

It usually takes a tragedy to initiate the types of
conversations that make us look at the unsavory aspects like racism,
sexism and homophobia. But it’s only through acknowledging these aspects
of humanity that change can be affected. It’s too late for Grant,
Martin, Matthew Shepard and any number of people who have violently died
out of human ignorance or hatred; but this all we get, folks. Let’s see
if we can get along, shall we?